


A Cabin Pressure Miscellany

by Lucyemers



Category: Cabin Pressure
Genre: Cabin Pressure Week, Fandot Creativity, Gen, fandot summer christmas
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-29
Updated: 2017-10-29
Packaged: 2019-01-26 03:08:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 1,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12547472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lucyemers/pseuds/Lucyemers
Summary: An assortment of different pieces from Tumblr, Creativity Night, etc.





	1. Weather

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For Cabin Pressure Week  
> Prompt: Vacation or "weather"

**Arthur:** You know what I find really pretty great fun, Douglas?

**Douglas:** Getting halfway through pitching a tent only to have the sky do a stirring impression of Niagara Falls?

**Arthur:** No..I mean this is pretty brilliant though, it’s like getting to visit one of those splash parks without having to worry about going all red and peely from the sunburn! But I was going to say figures of speech! Figures of speech are great! You know how sometimes a figure of speech that you say isn’t the thing that you’re actually saying, it’s just a figure of speech, but sometimes a figure of speech that you say is actually a thing that you’re saying but also still at the same time actually a figure of speech? Like um, Oh, I’ve got one, raining cats and dogs! So right now I might say, ‘Wow Douglas! It was good of you to come help us pitch our tents when it’s raining cats and dogs!’ But then sometimes it might actually be raining cats and…wait, no.

**Douglas:** Not my favorite type of weather really, that’s why I always check the feline forecast just before packing for a trip, do you?

**Arthur:** That’s brilliant! Do you really?

**Douglas:** No, Arthur I don’t. Pass me that tent stake.

**Arthur:** Oh, yeah, I guess that figure of speech doesn’t really work for what I was saying. But really, I was thinking of “under the weather”

**Douglas:** Might that be because it’s…raining?

**Arthur:** Might have been yeah, but also because Mum said Herc was under the weather so he couldn’t join us and now he’s missed the chance to be actually under the weather.

**Douglas:** So much the sadder for old Hercules, having to miss this jaunt. What’s he sick with? Felled by a sniffle?

**Arthur:** He didn’t sound very sniffly actually when I answered the phone. Mum did though, a bit, after they finished talking. Sniffly, and her eyes were all red like when you’re about to get a really bad cold. And then she got very quiet and went out to walk Snoopadoop. Maybe it’s best she’s down at the shops buying supplies right now instead of helping with the tent. Best not to be “under the weather” if she thought she might be “under the weather”. Oh, see, I did it that time! Still…rotten bad luck that Herc would get ill the week before he was moving back to Zurich.

**Douglas:** Hang on. Arthur..did you say Herc’s moving to Zurich?

**Arthur:** Yeah. Didn’t you know?

**Douglas:** You know I think your mum failed to mention that when she called me up last night to say Herc was sick and she didn’t know how to pitch a tent.

**Arthur:** Well that’s just crazy! Mum’s pitched tents loads of times. She told me she thought you might like a holiday. Well…she didn’t say holiday actually, she said trip.


	2. Minor Characters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For Cabin Pressure Week.  
> Prompt: Minor Characters

_“You can take him with you now in your big, empty ambulance to the hospital to which you are going anyway, and we can all hope and pray he doesn’t die on the way.”_

Throwing her coat down on the futon after a ten hour shift she was still fuming from it. Except she wasn’t. That wasn’t what was really pissing her off about the whole fiasco at the airport. She should have been still cringing at the self righteous of it, the effortless confidence, the way the other pilot gawked in awe and admiration, but she wasn’t cringing. Not at all. How long has she been supervising her ambulance crew? Six months? She still couldn’t quite manage to act like the one in charge on a daily basis. She bet that airline captain didn’t stammer when he got nervous, or have to constantly ask his co-workers for advice, or live in a one room apartment and live off Ramen.

No, she wasn’t fuming, and she wasn’t cringing. She was jealous. “My God!”, She thought to herself, “I want to be just like that.”


	3. Christmas Miracle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For Fandot Summer Christmas  
> Prompt: Image of a snowman made out of sand on sunny beach

Carolyn had never been the type for sending Christmas cards. But this year Arthur’s incessant pleading that the two of them send one had finally worn her down, especially when he volunteered to do all the work. She had drawn the line at giving him complete control, however, and insisted that she approve whatever photo he chose.

And pausing at their fridge as she retrieved the eggnog for a Christmas Eve nightcap, she had to admit, that his choice had been rather perfect. The front of the first Knapp Shappey Christmas card bore a snowman, or rather, sandman bedecked with sunglass, shells and starfish. She sipped her eggnog and chuckled to herself, wondering how many recipients, apart from Douglas and Martin would ever guess that such a photo was taken the morning after a plane crash.

Gerti, in all her persnickety glory, had sent the functionality of her warning lights off on Christmas holiday, thereby sending her good pilot and her safe pilot scrambling and, (perhaps for the first time in many years at Christmas?, Carolyn wondered) praying.

And then they’d coasted (literally) to safety off the coast of a tiny Caribbean Island, and the only one of them at all worse for wear was Martin with his inner ear trouble. He soon recovered after Douglas forced his head between his knees, though the sheer improbability of the feat he’d just accomplished did seem to continue to be a bit dizzying to him through the remainder of their Caribbean Christmas.

She’d been forced to endure nearly an hour of charades with Arthur.

And to hear Martin do conversational gymnastics in order casually to bring up the landing in all future conversations with attractive airport staff…and bartenders…and…very nearly everyone.

And to allow Herc to swoop down in his private jet, with a mechanic and rescue them all.

But she had rather enjoyed the sunshine.

And cocoa heated by campfire.

And the brilliance of all those stars.

Now that she thinks of it, it had been their last Christmas as MJN Air. Carolyn is not religious, and definitely not sentimental, and she groaned every time Arthur invoked the phrase “Christmas Miracle”.

And yet…


	4. Traffic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For Fandot Summer Christmas  
> Prompt: image of cars lined up in traffic in heavy snowfall

Douglas checked his phone again. No signal. The snow was coming down harder and the cars had come to a complete stand still. Surely she’d made it to the hospital hours ago, before the snow had started.

He hadn’t thought twice about working that night. He was on thin ice with Air England as it was, she hadn’t been due for another month, and everything had been going swimmingly. Swimming..his breath caught as he thought of his own tiny daughter swimming inside her. He’d put his cheek to her belly when she’d been doing her own little water aerobics in there. She hadn’t been close enough to him when he’d placed a hand to feel all the small movements. He’d wanted to be closer, and he’d closed his eyes while his wife had absentmindedly played with his hair and he’d felt her tumbling, and he’d listened for a heartbeat.

There was none of that tenderness the first time round. If he were honest with himself he remembered very little of the whole affair. He’d been out cold the morning Verity had been born, sleeping off the tail end of a bender that was spectacular even by his standards. He was going to do everything right this time. He was going to be there. But when they had landed and he’d switched on his mobile he’d had a flurry of texts, “water’s breaking”, “it’s too early”, “In the taxi, heading to the hospital”, and the one that beat through his head with every relentless slash of the wipers against the ice rapidly forming on the windshield, “I wish you were here”. And nothing after that. The time stamp was 4:30 and it was 9:30 now. But he had no signal. Any number of messages could be floating out there in the ether, any number of outcomes. The sky darkened. He was still miles and miles away.

When he looked back at that night, years later he thought, perhaps, her disappointment in him was the first of many that would slowly weather away their marriage. It hadn’t been his fault. She knew in her mind that she couldn’t blame him, but the mind can heal from hurts while the heart still holds on, and resentments buried deep in the snow have a tendency to resurface even after everything thaws.

But he’d arrived just before midnight to find his wife fast asleep. And the tiny, tiny girl who peered up at him through the plastic walls of the incubator had ignited a love in him bigger and stronger than the love that was ending as softly and slowly as snowfall.


	5. A Mate Who Has Not Gone Stale

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A tumblr request for a cabin pressure three sentence fic

“Don’t you think it was a laugh that Herc was so good at three small words of one sound but so bad at this game, but you….Could not say them to him at all? You have no qualms with such words now.”

“Shut up, Sky God and come and give me a Bing bong.”


	6. Cinnamon and Cloves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For Linguini who prompted a ficlet with "Cinnamon and Cloves"  
> inspired by a head canon of hers (as is the case with so much of my fic!)
> 
> Cross over with Endeavour

Carolyn was three glasses of mulled wine in before she got up the nerve to tell her favorite aunt. The scent of cinnamon and clove was thick as she sat listening to Win at the door saying her last goodbyes to the Christmas party guests. She gathered the courage that had been alluding her every time she thought about saying it, wondering what Win, who had always been the person she had looked to not only for advice but also as an example of how a long, happy marriage should look, would think of her news. 

The front door closed and she returned to sit next to her on the sofa where they both enjoyed the silence for a moment and Carolyn enjoyed the relief of finally having a moment to talk now that the rest of the guests were gone, and she didn’t have to put their conversation on hold for small talk and forced holiday jollity. 

“What’s really bothering you, Caro?”

“I’m leaving Gordon.” And there it was, out in the open. 

Win put a hand to her knee, a casual, comforting touch so very characteristic of her. “Well, it’s about time.”


	7. Nineteen and Zombies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the 10-28-17 Fandot Creativity Night  
> Prompt: Nineteen and/or Zombies

Arthur went unusually quiet right after mentioning his annual Halloween movie night in front of Douglas. Too quiet, Douglas thought to himself. “When is the chill inducing night of pure terror taking place?”, he asked.  
He was met with an awkward glance and very poor attempt to change the subject by Martin and a very quick, “It’s-28th-October-but-like-Martin-told-me-that’s-Verity’s-19th-birthday-so-you-probably-won’t-be-able-to-come” on one long breath from Arthur..  
“Martin said what??”, Douglas replied in mock offence.  
“Yeah, it’s just, last time, I think Mum didn’t like you scaring Herc during the scary bits by sneaking up behind him with Finn Mccool.”   
“Yes, he did scream rather loud...and then looked positively sheepish”, replied Douglas smugly.


	8. Dancing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the 10-28-17 Fandot Creativity Night  
> Prompt: Dancing

**Martin:** You know I would have always thought Herc would be quite the smooth dancer.  
 **Douglas:** I suppose that would depend on your definition of smooth, wouldn’t it?  
 **Arthur:** I always thought smooth was more like...not stepping on Mum’s feet and making little frustrated growling noises. But that’s just me!  
 **Martin:** Who can be good at everything? And she’s the mother of the groom, she’s expected to dance. Who else is she going to dance with?   
**Douglas:** I’m glad you asked those two very important questions, Martin, because I believe that’s my cue to go cut in.


End file.
